Convert a standard number to scientific notation (a × 10ⁿ) or expand scientific notation back to a plain number.
Numbers • sci notation
Encoding and decoding share the page, so any result can be pasted straight back to confirm it round-trips to the text you started with — the quickest check that nothing was mangled.
Results are recalculated on every keystroke, with no submit step and no page reload, so a value can be adjusted until the answer looks right rather than guessed once.
Everything runs in your browser — no account, no uploads, nothing leaves your device.
Scientific notation writes very large or very small numbers compactly as a value between 1 and 10 times a power of ten — 1,500,000 becomes 1.5 × 10⁶. It is the standard in science, engineering and math for keeping huge or tiny quantities readable and for showing significant figures.
This converter turns a standard number into scientific notation and expands scientific (e-notation) back into a full number, instantly in your browser.
Scientific notation writes any number as a coefficient between 1 and 10 multiplied by a power of ten. Its purpose is not brevity but precision: it makes significant figures explicit in a way ordinary notation cannot. Writing 93,000,000 leaves it ambiguous whether the trailing zeros are measured or merely placeholders, whereas 9.30 × 10⁷ states unambiguously that three digits are significant. The exponent counts how far the decimal point moved — positive for large numbers, negative for small ones — and engineering notation is a variant restricting exponents to multiples of three so they align with SI prefixes.
a × 10ⁿ, where 1 ≤ |a| < 10n = number of places the decimal point moves (left positive, right negative)Multiplication: multiply coefficients, add exponentsDivision: divide coefficients, subtract exponentswhere:
Assumptions: The coefficient must be at least 1 and less than 10 for standard form; 12.5 × 10³ is a valid number but not standard scientific notation, and should be written 1.25 × 10⁴.
Convert in both directions, then multiply two values in scientific notation.
Result9.3 × 10⁷ and 4.52 × 10⁻⁶
The renormalisation step is the one most often skipped. 42.036 × 10¹ is numerically correct but not standard form, and leaving it there causes errors when the value is fed into another calculation that assumes a coefficient below 10.